Hamilton struggles to be popular | 2008 race-by-race | Hamilton in his own words | Graphic: the thrilling finish | Do you believe in the conspiracy theories?

A triumph for technology or a mechanical miscalculation that almost brought calamity? Whichever way you look at it, the final three laps of the Brazilian Grand Prix that ended with Lewis Hamilton as world champion are already being regarded as among the most exciting finishes to a championship in Formula One history.

But if McLaren Mercedes regarded the thrilling climax as the rightful outcome to a tactical gamble formulated by computer and satellite information, the message was lost somewhere on the airwaves between the pitwall and the driver's cockpit. The championship-winning manoeuvre came within 1,000 metres of the finish line. Those last three laps are likely to be analysed and debated for years, not least because of the discrepancies in the team's and Hamilton's accounts of an almost unbelievable racing sequence.

With Felipe Massa, Hamilton's championship rival, leading the race in his Ferrari, the young Briton was holding fifth place with three laps to go. This would have made him champion, but he had Sebastian Vettel, the brilliant Toro Rosso driver, on his tail. Ahead of both of them, Timo Glock, in a Toyota, was struggling on a wet track in the building rain in fourth place, having decided, unlike all the other leaders, to remain on dry tyres to the finish. When Vettel passed Hamilton all looked lost.

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Martin Whitmarsh, the McLaren chief executive, who was among the team on the pitwall at Interlagos, implied that the team told Hamilton to let Vettel through three laps from the end because the McLaren GPS data suggested the Briton would have just enough time to catch Glock, who would have slipped to fifth place having also been passed by Vettel. They knew the Toyota man was on the wrong tyres and slowing all the time as he struggled to keep his car on the track.

“We were saying to Lewis, don't race him [Vettel], let Vettel through,” Whitmarsh said. “We knew we were racing Glock. We knew Glock was on drys and his tyres were starting to switch off and we knew we should catch him on the last lap. And of course you are staring at the GPS predictions that tell you you are going to do that but then you start to wonder if you've actually got it right.”

According to Whitmarsh, the thinking on the pitwall was that Hamilton was courting calamity trying to defend against Vettel, an ambitious driver whose tyres were in better shape than Hamilton's, so it was better to let him go. “It wasn't a concerted plan to let him through but it was 'don't take any chances here,'” Whitmarsh said. “We told Lewis that Glock was still on dry tyres and he could take Glock on that last lap.”

From the cockpit, where Hamilton was struggling to keep it together on a slippery track and within touching distance of the world title, the British driver saw the sequence differently. Reflecting on the pass by Vettel, he contradicted the view that he had let the German through and said that he was fighting to try to take the position back rather than biding his time until he came across Glock.

“Towards the end I was keeping Vettel at bay,” Hamilton said. “It was very hard to keep him behind. The last two laps were the toughest two laps of my entire career. To have lost the position to him, there was nothing I could do. I was pushing and pushing to get closer to him, taking more risks. Not unnecessary risks but I knew I was in P6, I knew I was one point away from the World Championship. Even when I came across the line I didn't know I had won it just yet.”

In the moments after Vettel went through, Hamilton said he tried to counter-attack. “'Gotta get him back', that was my first thought,” he said. “You don't have time to lose focus or think, 'Oh, God, it's gone'. You just have to think fast, you've got two laps to get him back. My car wasn't feeling great so I was trying to nurse the car and get every inch, every per cent out at the same time. It was close. There were a couple of corners left and it wasn't enough. I had no rear tyres so I couldn't get close enough to him.”

In Hamilton's account, he almost stumbled across Glock in the final corners of the last lap and saw his opportunity and took it. “Then it was turn 10 they told me 'Glock's just ahead, he's on slick tyres, he's struggling, if you can overtake him that would be great,'” Hamilton said. “I saw him exiting turn 10 and I didn't know if I was close enough, just two corners left. I came to turn 11 and saw Vettel pass him and he was just about to turn into the corner and I shot up the inside. At that point I relaxed and thought I should have it. But I expected the team to shout, 'Whoo hoo, you've won the championship'. But they didn't.”